[sanjuro]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?hp

From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone.

He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

Mr. Bush did foresee the danger posed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance giants. The president spent years pushing a recalcitrant Congress to toughen regulation of the companies, but was unwilling to compromise when his former Treasury secretary wanted to cut a deal. And the regulator Mr. Bush chose to oversee them — an old prep school buddy — pronounced the companies sound even as they headed toward insolvency.

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of thedownturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”

The result was a series of piecemeal policy prescriptions that lagged behind the escalating crisis.

 

[RUFUS]

What would you do if RM removed the politics forum?

 

[sanjuro]

What would you do if you pulled your head out your butt? See the sun for the first time?

 

[FlyinPolack]

What would you do if RM removed the politics forum?

prolly get a job or a girlfriend or something... nah..

 

[sanjuro]

Did I hurt your feelings? I'm sorry I made you look stupid everytime you posted something stupid. Merry Xmas!

 

[manimal]

don't worry...i still love you sanj

 

[RUFUS]

Did I hurt your feelings? I'm sorry I made you look stupid everytime you posted something stuipd. Merry Xmas!

Quoted for irony. Merry Xmas to you Sir.

 

[sanjuro]

Apparently Dana Perino disagrees with the NY Times: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/12/20081221-2.html

"Most people can accept that a news story recounting recent events will be reliant on '20-20 hindsight'. Today's front-page New York Times story relies on hindsight with blinders on and one eye closed. The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view. To prove the point, when they filed their story, NYT reporters were completely unfamiliar with the President's prime time address to the Nation where he laid out in detail all of the causes of the housing and financial crises."

- White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, 12/21/08